Morning journal and courier., 1887-01-19

The House Committee on Foreign Af-
 fairs Recommends Retaliation.
 WASHINGTON, Jan. 18.-The report of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs accom- panying the bill introduced by MT. Belmont appointing com mission to make an inves- tigation concerning losses and injuries in flicted since December 31, 1885, citizens of the United States engaged in North Amer ican fisheries, after reviewing the various treaties and the violations thereof by Cana
 dians, reaches the following conclusions:
 That by the treaty of peace in 1793 the
 American citizens became partners with
 British subjects in all the coast fisheries in
 North America remaining to Great Britain;
 that in 1876 Canada prescribed penalties not
 warranted by the treaty which were made
 more severe, and that in 1886, nearly half
 century afeer signing the treaty, ofense
 entirely new in legislation was denounced in
 most general terms and punished by confs-
 cation of everything seized. A very serious
 feature of this last named legislation is that
 it has been approved by the British crown
 and it proclaims non-intercourse in Canada
 with American fishing vessels for
 general trade. Of that feature
 your committee has given careful
 consideration and is unanimously of opinion
 that if, and so long Jas non-intercourse with
 American fishing vessels shall be thus main >tained in the ports or bays of the Dominion of Canada or Newfoundland, 8 non inter-
 course should be immediately begun and maintained in our own ports Those vessels whether trading or fishing have within the meaning of the seventeenth section of the law of Congress of June 19, 1886, been placed on the same footing in our ports as our own vessels clearing or entering foreign ports. Canadian vessels ares British vessels. The British crown has denied to American fish ing vessels commercial privileges extended to other vessels in Canadian ports. The motive and purpose of such de- hial have been openly and plainly avowed by Canada to be, first, the punishment of such vessels because the United States levies duty on Canadian fish, not fresh, for imme- diate consumption, such as the government levies on all such fish not the product of American fisheries and imported from any foreign place whatever; and, secondly, 70 eoerce the United States to exempt such Canadian fish from all duties and' to enter into other new reciprocal customs relations with the Canadian Dominion and Newfoundland. It is policy Of threat and coercion, which, in the opinion of your | committee, should be instantly and summa- rily dealt with. The circumstances will war
 rant and require, in the opinion of your
 committee, not only non-intercou1se with
 Canadian vessels bringing Canadian fish to
 our ports, but an exclusion of such fish from
 entry at our ports, whether brought by rail
 or by any other way. It is difficult to be- | lieve that Canada, having within the last twenty years so severely burdened herself
 with taxation by building railroads to Chi | cago and St. Paul and the whole West of our country, as we'll as to New York and Boston, will now deliberately and extensively enter upon and pursue policy toward our fisher.
 men which, if persisted in, can but end either in a suspension of commercial inter course by land or sea between her and our
 selves, or in consequences even more grave.